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Monday, November 18, 2013

Keeping Focused While Writing and Working from Home (Guest Post + Giveaway!)

Editor and fairy-tale expert Kristy Stewart of Looseleaf Editorial & Production is here today! Not only does she have great advice regarding balancing home- and work-life, but she's giving away FIVE copies of The Familius Christmas Anthology: Just for Kids, which you can read more about here. It's a great book for family nights, and a great gift! Just leave a comment below and I'll announce winners next Monday, November 25.

My newest Christmas anthology, The Familius Christmas Anthology: Just for Kids, just came up for
purchase in online retailers. In the process of putting the anthology together,
I ran into a whole host of

scheduling nightmares and stress-inducing deadlines.
But Charlie and I both have issues with the idea of people saying things like
“I don’t have time to write.” The way we fill our time is made up of choices,
which are based on things we value. If you value something enough, you’ll make
time for it. Sometimes writing (or some other activity) is not as valuable as
other things (providing for and parenting children, etc.). Even so, I
completely empathize with people who have difficulty balancing all the things
they value. I currently have a very active one-year-old boy, I’m earning a
master’s degree in English, and my husband and I are both working to pay for
rent, books, and tuition.

I do almost all my work from home. With all the different
claims on my time that I value, it can be hard to focus on one project, but
when I’m drowning in a bottomless pit of deadlines, there are a few things that
help me manage to come out alive.

Know Your Assets

Early this year, when I was figuring out how and when I
would put together this Christmas anthology, I had to analyze the assets I had
available. I had quite a few:

Naptime. This was irregular, but oh so precious,
and my son is a good sleeper once he gets going. It’s important to know when
you have time available. That time may be at 5 AM, between 10 PM and midnight,
or during the precious hour(s) while your infant slumbers.

My husband. At the time I was putting the
anthology together, the hubby didn’t have a lot of time to help me free up some
of my own. But he was still awesome at helping me calm down and find guinea
pigs for my recipes (i.e., his family).

Grandma. Not every new mother has access to a
grandma within a seven-minute drive, but I do, and I take advantage of her when
I need to. Knowing who in your circle of friends or family can help you free up
some time, talk through an outline, or speed up revisions is vital. These
people care about you, and it’s okay to ask for a few favors now and again (and
also very okay to reciprocate).

My co-editor. Rick Walton is great to work with,
and every year he gathers all the stories and poems we need and gives me some
summaries so I can figure out which ones work best with any theme or
organization we choose for our book.

Be Realistic

Despite all these assets, I couldn’t go crazy on this
anthology. This year we were slated to do the theme “around the world” (some
retailers still have the old description text) and “just for kids” was for next
year. But “around the world” was going to take a lot more research, and I knew
that I needed more time than I had by the publisher’s deadline. So I asked Rick
and the publisher if we could trade the topics for this year and next. “Just
for kids” was easier for me to do in my time constraints, and next year I’ll
have finished my degree and will have the extra time for research. I had to be
realistic about what I could accomplish in the time I was willing to commit to this
project.

Choose Priorities

After I made the change to “just for kids” and turned in a
sample chapter for Familius’s sales team, I had four months or so to put
together the anthology before the deadline. But I was also in the middle of a semester in which I was studying topics I wasn’t familiar with, my son was
starting to be less okay with the stick-him-in-the-baby-carrier-and-study
method of survival, and I was working as a teaching assistant and a webmaster
on top of completing projects for freelance clients. The anthology, at that
point in time, could not be my priority. So I decided which month I would
dedicate to the anthology: I gave it July. Since I planned ahead, I was able to
schedule freelance projects around the anthology (so I didn’t disappoint
clients), I wasn’t taking any classes, and I knew it was a good month to ask
for help from Grandma too. Pre-scheduling and making my priorities clear to
myself and those around me made it possible for me to compile my parts of the
anthology and take pictures all in one month.

It’s never easy to balance all the things we value, but with
some forward thinking, realism, and humility, you can finish your novel, meet a
publisher’s deadlines, or make it through another hectic holiday season without
completely losing your mind.

It's the BEST. Sometimes I had to use it to do dishes instead of write ... but the dishes had to be done for me to test recipes, so it was still part of the process (in addition to making my home a better place to live in).

I'm really, really impressed with your organization and planning. You're right - that, more than anything, makes it possible to do the things you want to do. I appreciate the advice, and the inspiration :)

Well said, and this sort of organization and planning can apply to pretty much everything. @_@ I have less to worry about than a lot of people (no kids, plenty of alone time), but I still schedule my writing time and make sure I'm in my chair and ready when that starts.

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